


Swallowed By The Sky

by Eternal_Love_Song



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, IronWidow - Freeform, This idea is probably unfinished, i don't know why i did this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 16:11:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7581052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eternal_Love_Song/pseuds/Eternal_Love_Song
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony takes a missile into space, he doesn't come back down. Natasha doesn't stop waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swallowed By The Sky

Natasha waited with bated breath, her eyes glued to the sky. The wind was loud in her ears and it tossed the ends of her short hair wildly around her face. Red danced at the edges of her vision as it became tinted blue. There was yelling in her ear that she tried to tune out and she gripped Loki's staff tighter in her hand.

Tony had gone up into the gaping hole several minutes ago, but she was still waiting for him to come back down. Her eyes were trained on the opening in the sky, looking for any possible sign of him.

The yelling in her ear was becoming more insistent. They wanted her to close the portal, but she was still waiting. She was still searching. She was still hoping. Tony always had something up his sleeve, always had something to get him out of tense situations. Always! Always...

“Close the portal, Romanov!” Captain America was repeating. “Close it!”

She was hesitating. He had to come back down. She had to wait. She had to--

“Close it, now!”

Her grip on the staff became bruising as she jammed the staff forward into the portal. There was a clash of light and she was forced to look away. The opposing forces cancelled each other out and the portal closed itself.

Tony didn’t come back down.

Natasha was frozen in place until she heard the Hulk roar. Slowly, she forced herself to end her desperate vigil. Her eyes drifted away from the sky and toward the ground. There was cheering, celebrating. The threat had been stopped. They had won.

Tony didn’t come back down.

* * *

  
Afterwards, Natasha returned to shield with Clint. There were reports needed to be written. There were questions that needed to be answered. She was moving on a slow auto pilot, but one room made her stop in her tracks. 

She was alone in the room and the awareness of that fact began slowly encroaching on her awareness. The silence was haunting her, bringing to memory the roaring loudness of earlier that day. 

Natasha stared at the open file on table, the one she had written on Tony. The words ‘volatile’ and ‘doesn’t play well with others’ kept leaping out at her. Hasty words based on a hasty judgement. She regretted those words. Regretted that she had stained Shield’s perception of him and that he chose to repay her disservice with his life.

It was too late to take them back. Even if she corrected the files, something she should have done weeks, maybe even months ago, what would be the point? No one would believe the account being made now. It couldn't change anything even if they did.

“Hey.” Clint's voice got her attention, breaking her from her reverie. She made no indication of being startled. Her stiffness and stillness remained the same as she listened to him coming closer. “What’s wrong?”

“We lost too much today,” She answered quietly.

His eyes glazed over a moment in his own reflection. He had lost something, too. More than just a teammate. His peace of mind had been shattered and so had his credibility. Clint pulled himself together with some effort.

“We could have lost more,” He told her.

Natasha knew that he was right. They almost lost Coulson. They could have lost their lives and their planet. Still, Natasha couldn’t stop staring at the folder, at her own words on the page, thinking, ‘He didn’t come back down....’

* * *

  
Natasha went to Stark Industries instead of going home. She knew that none of the others would think to do the obvious thing. Most of the Avengers didn't know the first thing about Tony and they didn't care to learn. Coulson probably would have been the one to do this, but he was not in the shape to do so.

In truth, she couldn't bring herself to face Pepper. None of this as her fault. She wasn't the reason that Tony joined the Avengers, had recommended the exact opposite, in fact. Still, she didn't think that Pepper would share that sentiment. 

Natasha waited in the lobby by the door instead of trying to make her way to Pepper's office. She knew that she could easily do so, but neither her heart nor her mind was in it.

She hadn't known Tony that long, not really, but she had grown to understand him. He wasn't the person that everyone thought he was, that she had thought he was. They had even come to an understanding with one another. He had forgiven her her deception and she had come to appreciate him more than she ever expected him to. She hesitated to call him a friend, to call anyone a friend, but she liked to think that they could have been.

"Natasha?" Pepper's voice broke her from her reverie. "What are you doing here?"

Natasha took a deep breath before she stood. When she spoke, her voice sounded even more flat than usual to her, as if she had yet to leave mission mode and this was just another part of her assignment. It was as if the situation were both too real and not real at all.

"Has anyone from Shield contacted you?" Natasha asked.

"No," Pepper answered with a mix of confusion and budding worry. "I tried to call Coulson but he hasn't answered his phone."

"Coulson was injured," Natasha informed her. "He'll probably be out of touch for a while." If he was ever in touch again. Natasha couldn't think of any reason for Coulson or Shield to have anything to do with Pepper Potts without her connection to Iron Man. 

"So, why are you here?" Pepper questioned. "Did something happen to Tony?"

For just a moment, Natasha's words caught in her throat. "There was... There was a missile launched at New York. He was able to stop it, but... "

'He didn't come back down.'

She couldn't force herself to say it. She couldn't make the words leave her lips. How could a man like Tony Stark be... How could he just be...

She nearly choked on her next words. "I'm sorry."

"No!" The anger in Pepper's voice pulled Natasha into reality again. "No, you are not sorry!"

"Pepper, I--"

"No!" She repeated. "You're the reason he's gone! You're the reason he was there! You... You only came into our lives to trick us in the first place and now you want me to believe you're sorry!"

This is usually where Natasha would get a handle of the situation. This is where she was suppose to settle the situation, calm the tension, stop the scene that Pepper was creating. But she didn't. Natasha didn't do anything. She stood there as Pepper yelled, building herself into a frenzy until the guards took notice and separated them.

Natasha could only feel cold. There was wind at her back, red at the edge of her vision, and her world was tinted blue.

 

 


End file.
